Circle Mirror Transformation

Company: Melbourne Theatre Company
Venue: Lawler Studio, Melbourne Theatre Co, Southbank, Melbourne
Dates: To 17 September 2011

In an extracurricular classroom, five strangers take a drama class. They are all of varying ages, statuses and personalities. They all have different reasons for taking the class. And each one has a very unique story to tell.

Directed by Aidan Fennessy and written by the celebrated American playwright Annie Baker, Circle Mirror Transformation is fascinating with its depth, yet charming with its simplicity. It opens with a monologue, the character of James (Roger Oakley) a fifty-something man adopting the life of his wife, Marty (Deidre Rubenstein). He has his back to the audience and reflects on her perspective – while she prompts him from the sidelines as to what his perspective actually is. Marty is the teacher of the class, warm, motherly and ultimately set in her ways. She teaches drama through thought and experimentation, encouraging her flock to do the same.

Then there is Lauren (Brigid Gallacher) a painfully shy teenager who wants more than anything else to be an actress. She is confused by the class activities and frustrated by her own lack of learning. She keeps her eyes down and her posture defensive – she is not here to make friends. Kate Cole plays Theresa, a wonderfully selfish free spirit who at thirty-five embraces her new life path despite the fact that she has just been liberated from a long-term relationship that she can’t quite come to terms with. Her rebound fling arrives in the form of Schultz (Ben Grant) who is a forty eight year old recent divorcee and a completely destroyed shell of a man.

These five people are very different and it may seem unclear as to what they could possibly have to say to one another, especially in the confines of a classroom. But over a six-week period, they grow together and open up their deepest secrets to build, and inevitably destroy, some long-term relationships.

What’s truly remarkable about Circle Mirror Transformation is how richly complex each character is and therefore the weight with which they interact with the people around them. Annie Baker is no novice at story development. As the play progresses, each person becomes a prism of personality, and a tapestry of friendship, hatred and love is woven. Baker has achieved this through intimate use of dialogue, monologue and prolonged awkward silences. The audience is privy to six separate classes, the first of which is hesitantly staggered through as strangers get to know one another through flimsy drama class games and sequences. As time goes on however, and the absurdity of drama class is fully embraced, each character evokes a fellow actor’s personality and reveals their thoughts, dreams and regrets. There is a lot of learning to be done within these walls; some of it strengthening, some of it destructive.

A plausibly realistic story told in a beautifully non-naturalistic way, Circle Mirror Transformation is the story of what happens when you think it’s all over – and what ends when you think it’s just beginning.

Corina Thorose